Rockin’ Around Carleton Place — Episode 1— Carleton Place’s Favourite Things

Well we did the Halloween blog on an almost daily basis so it is time for holiday cheer and what-nots. So let’s start the weekend right..

Find out all about your Holiday events on the Carleton Place Social Scene. Thanks Lisa Strangway

 

 

Maybe Christmas, the Grinch thought, doesn’t come from a store.—Dr. Seuss

This weekend celebrate tradition and bring the family. Christmas isn’t a season. It’s a feeling.– Come feel the love at Jame’s Holiday Bazaar in Carleton Place.

 

 

Finders Keepers? It’s happening this Saturday at the Canoe Club. This is the third year that Monika Henry brings a European flair to local craft shows. Henry’s thoughts is that a trunk or suitcase must be the integral part of the vendor’s display, which is a popular theme in Europe. She was an exchange student in high school, from Switzerland, and married a local boy (Joe Henry – of Kingfish Pumping).  Four & Twenty Blackbirds is her business name, and she creates all kinds of fabric awesomeness, mostly for babies (bibs, burp cloths, soother tethers, etc.) A One-of-a-Kind-Find Craft Show in Carleton Place.

Saturday, November 14at 10:00am – 3:00pm in EST

Carleton Place Canoe Club

 

Christmas is coming! We are looking for candid photos of your Christmas celebrations in Carleton Place. If you’d like to share your photos from the past with us please email them to cpbheritagemuseum@bellnet.ca . Thank you!

My Favourite Hallmark Movies

 

Stories I Love You Should Read Again…

My kids know how much I love this story.

 The Little Match Girl – Hans Christian Anderson

Hans Christian Andersen (April 2, 1805 – August 4, 1875) was a Danish author and poet noted for his children’s stories. During his lifetime he was acclaimed for having delighted children worldwide, and was feted by royalty. His poetry and stories have been translated into more than 150 languages. They have inspired motion pictures, plays, ballets, and animated films. Originally published as part of Andersen’s fifth volume of Fairy Tales in 1848, The Little Match Girl is an original Andersen story inspired by a Johan Thomas Lundbye drawing and loosely based on an incident that happened to Andersen’s mother when she was a child. Written nine years after Andersen’s friend and colleague Charles Dickens finished Oliver Twist, The Little Match Girl shed a light on a very oppressed and silent group in Europe — its children.

 

Favourite Cookie (that would be yesterday’s story The Ginger Snap)

The Invincible Ginger Snap Cookies of Carleton Place

 

 

 

Carleton Place’s Favourite Things– If Oprah can do it we can too!!.. Each blog will have something different.

 

Be like a postage stamp. Stick to one thing until you get there

My Baby, Just-a Wrote Me a Letter– The Carleton Place Post Office

 

 

Holiday Cards	Send as late as		Holiday Packages	Send as late as
Local Delivery	December 21		Priority™	December 23
Within Province	December 18		Xpresspost™	December 22
Outside Province	December 17		Regular Parcel™	December 11

 

 

Baby, it’s Cold Outside!

SnowStoppers® Kid’s Mittens

Winter- hot cocoa, snowfalkes and mittens

Kids stay warmer and play longer with SnowStoppers® Kid’s Mittens The patented Extra-Long Cuff is what makes the difference!

“I originally purchased two pairs of the mittens three years ago and they are still going strong!!! Both my kids have grown out of theirs but I am now passing the older child’s to the youngest and now I’m going to order new ones for my oldest: ) I will always have my kids wear these it protects their wrists and arms from the snow. Best mittens/gloves ever!”

Apple Cheeks

53 Bridge Street

Carleton Place, Ontario

(613) 451-2769

http://www.applecheeksconsignment.com/

 

My Favourite Song

 

Do You have an Archaeological Find in Your Carleton Place Basement?

Two days ago I posted the story about the hidden room in my basement. Local resident Nancy Green posted on Facebook she had the same thing and had poked a flashlight to see if she could find anything odd. Well now, It makes total sense what it is. It is located directly under the front verandah, and very common in older homes. It definitely used to be a cistern.

Cisterns were used for the collection of rain water, and were quite common at homes throughout the 19th century.  They can also be found at a few 18th century homes and some were built as late as the early 1940s.  Using the roof as a rain collection surface, gutters and downspouts delivered water to the cistern.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Most of them were a  large rectangular box located under a porch, with the porch floor being the cover.  Before the floor of the porch was replaced we used to have th remains of what was once a trap door. There were many folklore “rules” governing when and how water was to be collected if you wanted it to stay “sweet”. Built to catch rainwater, which was then used for domestic chores. Of course it became doomed by indoor plumbing.
The success of indoor plumbing initiated the demise of cisterns, which became white elephants with the abundant flow of water from kitchen and bathroom faucets. Cisterns were eventually filled with unwanted items, buried and forgotten and walled over like ours. The fact that cisterns have remained virtually undisturbed, in some instances for hundreds of years,  can we consider them archaeological finds?

Apparently some of them (not ours) are steeped in treasures, such as ceramics, coins, tintype photographs and food particles, that can tell archaeologists about what people of the time liked to buy and eat. You have to remember when my home was built in 1867 the local water probably smelled bad and people got sick. The early settlers associated rainwater with freshness and thought cisterns might be the long-term answer. So should we really consider these rooms archaeological finds? That’s hard to answer as I am sure in a few hundred years people will dig up tanning beds and think we used to fry people for punishment.

Buy Linda Secaspina’s Books— Flashbacks of Little Miss Flash Cadilac– Tilting the Kilt-Vintage Whispers of Carleton Place and 4 others on Amazon or Amazon Canada or Wisteria at 62 Bridge Street in Carleton Place

With a Little Photographic Help — The Friendship Club of Carleton Place

Today it’s a peaceful park behind town hall, with a fountain, benches and a few plaques. In the 1980’s, this building hugged Town Hall tightly and housed the Senior Citizen’s Friendship Club and before that Carleton Place Public Utility Commission. There is a binder full of photos from The Friendship Club at the Carleton Place and Beckwith Heritage Museum. If you would like to see it lease contact the museum and they will be happy to show it to you.

The majority of the Carleton Place & District Youth Centre on Mill Street was demolished in early October. The building is also remembered as the old Fire Hall. “The remainder (was) renovated into a delightful building housing public washrooms,” LeBlanc stated, “and when completed, this new public gathering place will feature floral displays, seating and chess and checkers, all under sails for shade.”-NEWS JAN 23, 2014

Photos from the Carleton Place and Beckwith Heritage Museum

I am Forever Blowing Bubbles on Bridge Street

Civic pride went to extremes in Carleton Place in September of 1980 when a woman was seen on her hands and knees on Bridge Street scrubbing the sidewalk. Things were not the way they seemed. From the window of her paint shop Sylvia Wing saw a problem. A woman having a conversation in front of the store was holding heavy grocery bags. Most of the contents of a bottle of detergent spilled onto the sidewalk. Wing was afraid someone might slip and hurt themselves, so she tried washing the sidewalk down with buckets of water.

Photo- Ottawa Citizen-1980

It wasn’t as easy as she thought, and the slippery liquid spread over an wider area. Persistent, she got down on her knees and began to scrub. The action complete with a light breeze created a large fountain of bubbles. For awhile Bridge street looked the outdoor set for the Lawrence Welk Show. As the floating bubbles drew a crowd,  a couple of wiseguys, suggested sweeping the sidewalk would have been sufficient. But Mrs. Wing got the mess cleaned up without the help of the peanut gallery, and nobody slipped.

111 Bridge Street today- St. James Gate Wing’s was located next door

Newpaper photo- The Carleton Place Canadian files from The Carleton Place and Beckwith Heritage Museum

Buy Linda Secaspina’s Books— Flashbacks of Little Miss Flash Cadilac– Tilting the Kilt-Vintage Whispers of Carleton Place and 4 others on Amazon or Amazon Canada or Wisteria at 62 Bridge Street in Carleton Place

Stolen Air Conditioners in Carleton Place — Unsolved Mysteries

in August of 1974 the employees of the Findlay Foundry in Carleton Place had to battle heat in their Townline plant because someone had made off with three air conditioners. The air conditioners were apparently stolen sometime during the night and police believe entry was gained through their resting position in the opened windows. Constable Wayne Drummond was investigating the incident. Now word was mentioned in future newspapers if the scoundrels that stole them had been found.

In Smiths Falls the same shenanigans were  happening but the local police force had better luck. Smiths Falls Police Chief said their stolen air conditioners were found in the back seat of a car behind the Russell Hotel in Smiths Falls. The lads had probably worked up a sweat!

Photo: from the Carleton Place and Beckwith Heritage Museum-A photo of the original Findlay foundry building. This is the only such photograph in the museum’s collection. Dated 1899 it shows a group of workers posing in front of the stone and wood frame building. Note the young boy in the centre row, and the man in front with a pipe and cup of something!

“If you don’t know where you come from, you don’t know who you are!” —The late Edna Gardner Carleton Place

Buy Linda Secaspina’s Books— Flashbacks of Little Miss Flash Cadilac– Tilting the Kilt-Vintage Whispers of Carleton Place and 4 others on Amazon or Amazon Canada or Wisteria at 62 Bridge Street in Carleton Place

Picking at the Branches of the Hawkins Clan

Soldiers returning from the Napoleonic wars on the European mainland were flooding the labour market. There had been a war in North America between the Americans and the Canadians (1812-14). The English government offered free land to settlers (preferably with military experience) to defend Canada from the Americans. A lot of the original Hawkins family came over during that period and settled in Beckwith and Lanark.

It has been noted that the first Hawkins men may have been from the Church of England in Beckwith, but they were always 
“Irish loyal.” The family name of Hawkins was of English origin, but they chose to side with the Irish (some of their Irish wives insisted). It was made clear to me they were quite proud of the Irish blood, and their English name was just a name.

This is an account from Cathie Hawkins McOrmond about her family.

My Great Grandfather was born on the 9th line Hawkins homestead. He grew up married and had children there. One of his sons, my Grandfather went west and settled in Winnipeg, Manitoba and had children of his own one– of those children being my father Marvin. The stain glass windows above the choir pew at St. James Anglican Church in Carleton Place are in memory of my great great grandparents. My Mother and Father, Marvin and Doris, met and married in Winnipeg. My father was in WWII, and when he returned he was the only Canadian trained in Code Sypher and he was offered a position in Ottawa with External Affairs.

My parents moved to Ottawa, had six children, with me being the youngest. They lived and worked in Ottawa for many years, but once they decided to retire they purchased 45.5 acres of land in Beckwith running from the tracks up Lake Park Road. They built a house and retired, and my brother and I being the youngest are the only two that moved to Carleton Place with them.The land my Dad purchased on Lake Park Road after he retired. He cut cross country ski trails for many to use for years and named the trails after his children and grandchildren. Eventually my father sold 29.5 acres to a housing developer, hense the current name Hawkins Drive off of Lake Park Rd. Myself, along with my siblings eventually sold the house my parents lived in once my mother had passed.

There was a trail named after myself called Catherine  marked with a sign. This land was part of the 29 acres sold, and one day I was called and told a child found the sign and had taken it into school for show and tell. It had a year on it of 1975. Louise Gour  now lives in Cathie’s childhood home and sadly says the trails no longer exist. We don’t own our family history, we just preserve to carry on to tell others. It’s a link to the past and a bridge to the future.

Support Your Local Legion!

The photo above is Branch 99 from Cowansville, Quebec. It is the very branch my Grandfather Frederick J. Knight helped found after serving in the trenches in WW1. My father Arthur J. Knight followed suit in WW2 and proudly followed his father, always supporting Branch number 99 until his death. Each year I would march in the Remembrance Parade behind the Legion. When I found this picture of them marching in Cowansville in the 1950’s it brought tears to my eyes.

The Canadian Legion is extremely important to me no matter where they are located. It should be important to you too!

There are great stories coming out of our local Branch 192 Carleton Place. Rhonda Pond sent me this message:

I recently received my 20 year membership pin, and I couldn’t be prouder of many, many leaders in our community! I am moved tremendously by Comrades Ron Gobel, Jerry Flynn, the Ocean Wave Fire Company, the Carleton Place OPP and every volunteer who has shown Dan Boudreault what it means to belong. Thank you to my Dad, Comrade Garry Pond, for sharing this with me. Please pass this along ~ we want EVERY veteran to have a place to come to for help. Join your local Legion, volunteer where when you can. You never know which friend or neighbour will need you first, or which one might help you. ‪#‎findyourRCL‬ ‪#‎branch192‬

 

177 George Street

Carleton Place, Ontario

In memory of Fred J. Knight of Cowansville, Quebec.
He is the one in the middle with the Mason apron on.. Now that’s another story 🙂

The Pink Pig is Coming Tomorrow– It’s Sausage Time Carleton Place!

I SMELL SAUSAGES!!!

The Carleton Place & District Memorial Hospital (CPDMH) 60th Birthday Family Day was a great success with hundreds of community members joining in the celebrations at Beckwith Park. Thank you to everyone who attended and to our amazing sponsors for your support.  The day included fun for the whole family – complete with health displays, kids’ events, a Teddy Bear Hospital, skating, a BBQ organized by the CPDMH Auxiliary, and much more.  As the skies started to darken around 1:30, one little boy was overheard lamenting ‘Does it really have to end at 2:00?’

The festivities continue with a 60th Birthday BBQ in front of the hospital this Wednesday, June 3rd from 11 to 2. Enjoy $6.00 lunches complete with birthday cupcakes made right on the grill courtesy of Beckwith Butchers and Traeger Canada.  All proceeds to the CPDMH Foundation

Drinking in the Rain — Hand Me the Booze and Watch Me Get Fabulous— Photos of Carleton Place

Wine’d Around Downtown – Carleton Place –Saturday May 30th, 2015!  It was  a great way to visit local restaurants, sample wines and delicious appetizers too! Sadly Mother Nature didn’t co-operate but no one was complaining. This woman biked from Ottawa to Carleton Place for the event in two hours. When asked why she said,

“It’s just what I do!”

I bow to this woman I really do.

At the Generations Inn kiosk on Bridge Street! Look at those smiles, even with the rain!

Generations Inn serving up the yummies!

One of my favourite pictures. Sandy and friends!

Waterfall Catering serving up the yummies behind Moore House. Yes, the Chamber of Commerce is there but it will always be Moore House to me.

A good pair of legs will get you in anywhere.

Beckwith Butcher over by the town hall.

Penny Foster and friend at Slackoni’s

Rob from Slackoni’s- Love that smile!

The Gastro Pub across the river.

Everyone was nice and dry here at the Gastro Pub

Ballygiblin’s was packed and I had a picture of Derek but he kind of looked like a blowfish. I like Derek and understand bad pictures, trust me, so only Chef Dusty has a copy.:)

Our gal Sherry and friend.

Da Moose!

The incredible delightful ladies of the Moose.

The Queens

Trying to convey words of wisdom at the Queens over the roar of the crowd.

The Queen of the Queens

THIS was what it was all about.:)

Where is This -Part 2- Are We Any Farther Ahead?

Another picture from the old files of The Canadian rescued by Jennifer Fenwick Irwin from The Carleton Place and Beckwith Hertage Museum. Is it still around? I have a good idea where this is but we will see what everyone else says..

Where my first thoughts were was on HWY 7 -Ramsay 4A.. It used to be a gas station and then turned in to the Book Gallery that is now on Lake Ave West. But, all that is left is an empty lot now as the building was falling down. Muldoon’s is now a new building on High Street.

I drove out to Black’s Corners. I remember the garage was a white frame, but it has been remodeled around the original roof peak. There seems to be three peaks here. I was just told this was Devlin’s old place.

Thoughts?

Jennifer Fenwick Irwin from the Carleton Place and Beckwith Museum has just sent this so now she is placing a call to Jeff MaGuire. Thanks Jennifer– this is the old Falcon-, on Highway 7 at 4th Concession of Ramsay